The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is reportedly creating its own "Twitter dictionary" to help agents understand tweets.
The dictionary was published on the website MuckRock on Tuesday at the behest of Jason Mathersas. The document showed 83 pages with about 2,800 entries including weird acronyms, letters and numbers that might be helpful if used during investigations. The file was distributed to more than 35,000 federal agents.
"This list has about 2,800 entries you should find useful in your work or for keeping up with your children and/or grandchildren," the document stated. "The DI's Intelligence Research Support Unit [that's IRSU to you], has put together an extensive - but far from exhaustive - list of shorthand acronyms used in Twitter and other social media venues such as instant messages, Facebook, and MySpace."
The entries in the document ranged from ordinary to downright strange. Common terms included BRB (be right back), KISS (keep it simple, stupid) and TLDR (too long; didn't read), but there were also weird entries such as BTDGTGTTSAWIO (Been there, done that, got the T-shirt and wore it out), FMDIDGAD (Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn), and ::POOF:: (goodbye - leaving the room).
The FBI stated that the dictionary will help its employees better understand the "leetspeak." Leetspeak is online slang referring to the act of replacing the letters of a word with new characters to form a different word. The language is often used by hackers, who attempt to keep their plans covert by speaking in code. In response to this, the agency created a list that would serve as a guide to intercept these messages.
"With the advent of Twitter and other social media venues on the Internet, the use of shorthand and acronyms has expanded," the document said, as quoted by Valuewalk.
The leak came after the CIA joined Twitter this month with its first tweet: "We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet. We could tell you but then we would have to kill you."
The FBI did not immediately respond when requested for comments.
